When you’re always looking for the greatest new app, sometimes you forget about the awesome apps that power your life. The apps you use day in, day out to make money, stay in touch with family and friends, be creative, stay informed, and more are the most important apps, way more important that that new app that might come out tomorrow and just might revolutionize your life … or not.

Funny thing is, apps that you use all the time can fade into the background, and you’ll almost never think about them. It’s easy to take for granted the apps we use most. From your web browser to your bookmarking app, there are apps you use every day without thinking about it, but you’d be hard pressed to live without them.

Today’s Thanksgiving in America, which makes a great time to stop and think of the things you’re grateful for, no matter where you call home. Our team has rounded up some of the apps we’re thankful for this year, and we’d love to hear from you. What Mac apps are you the most thankful to have around this year? Perhaps an older app that’s stood the test of time, or a newer app that’s recently become essential to your workflow. Either way, we’d love to hear about it in the comments below!

The world loves food. Even if you may not be a foodie, there has to have been a time when you came across a dish and it brought you instant joy. As Voltaire put it, nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.

And given our obsession with what we put in our mouths, it’s no surprise that there are tons of web apps that focus on helping you find good restaurants to eat at. But that just tells you where to eat at, not what to eat there. Foodspotting wants to fill that void. (more…)

For the last fifteen years that we’ve been using email clients — webmail or desktop — the basic concepts and features remained the same. Anyone may have its own workflow to deal with emails and get things done, but almost everyone has to struggle with the same old, rigid logic provided by almost all clients on the market. However, we’re doing more and more with email these days than we did in the nineties. Something, it seems, needs to change.

The Kickstarter-funded Mail Pilot web app, still in beta, aims at redefining the way of dealing with emails. Let’s see how it might help you actually get things done.

Note-taking is a small yet important part of anyone’s digital routine. That’s why apps like Evernote prove extremely useful for anyone who needs to jot down pieces of information at any given time. It lets you quickly jot down text notes or take shots of important documents from any device you’re using, or directly from your web browser.

If you think you’ve used Evernote for everything, thought, think again. The Evernote Trunk is full of apps, devices, notebooks, and more that can help you get the most out of the service. Here’s 10 of our favorite Evernote compatible web apps that showcase the different ways that Evernote can be of further use in any aspect of our lives.

When Google Voice was first introduced in 2009, many weren’t sure what to make of it. I, and others I’m sure, saw something exciting. Instead of using those ridiculous “free texting” apps for my iPhone, why not get a number with Google Voice and start using the service for all SMS? It worked perfectly, and didn’t cost me a penny.

Things have changed since the original days of Google Voice, though. Getting a personal phone number at the service has become harder, even though it’s still free, because so many people are using it. There’s also the fact that the free calling feature is scheduled to leave at the end of this year, which may drive away some users. What about an alternative? CallingVault looked nice back in May when it first started accepting beta invitations, and the service has finally granted me entrance. It’s only free while in beta, but looks promising enough to be worth switching to. Shall we take a look?

Remember Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing? Wouldn’t it be cool if someone wrenched it out from its stuffy confines of edutainment and wrapped it in a colorful, more “gamey” and fun package?

Turns out, they did, sort of. Typing Karaoke is like a prototype for a Mavis Beacon meets SingStar game, and it’s fantastic — both as an aide to improving your typing skills and as a fun way to pass the time.(more…)

Instagram was one of those iPhone apps that was easy to use, gave you a way to share your precious moments with others, and quickly gathered an impressive fan base that couldn’t quit sharing their love for the app. In fact, just last April, Instagram was so hot, that Facebook decided to buy the company for $1 billion. Now talk about a pay day; that is unbelievable for company that just produced a simple camera app for the iPhone.

But, if you are an avid Instagram user, you always knew that something was missing. The fact that they made it so hard for you to access your pics on the web and to interact and see other friend’s Instagram photos was just a little strange to me. Before they sold to Facebook, I had always thought that they were sitting on a gold mine if they could successfully launch the web side of their app. Well, the day has finally arrived when we can now look at our pics online and have the ability to interact with others. I want to briefly show you around the new profiles on the web as well as talk about what could possibly lie ahead for the future of this app.

The digital world is full of cloud storage and other related services. It’s definitely not a new idea — Dropbox has been on the task for years, and it wasn’t even the first — but ever since Apple decided to go iCloud, other corporations and entrepreneurs saw an opportunity to grab the market. There’s really nothing wrong with Dropbox, though. It’s been a solid service since its inception in 2008 and it’s been constantly improving, trying to develop the best user experience possible.

Then, in all the glory of this cloud giant, a new threat surfaced. Its name is SugarSync, the simple, yet efficient alternative to Dropbox. Interestingly enough, it too was launched in 2008, but it didn’t take off like Dropbox. Now, the developers have begun a new version — 2.0 — of the service and released it in the form of a public beta. The company says it “merges power and simplicity” becoming “the simplest cloud to use”. Can this bring a new wave of competition to such a longstanding foe as Dropbox? (more…)

These days, businesses are just so competitive. They are driven by the motivation to match their competition feature by feature. So, there aren’t many distinguishing traits or USPs for products and services to stand apart. That is, except when it comes offering their customers exceptional support.

We are better off forking a bit more money for a brand that promises to treat us with respect when knocking their doors for help. Such decisions end up saving a lot of time and frustration of dealing with indifferent and rude support people. Sadly, this doesn’t work all the time and you might have to fight hard with a brand to get your issue resolved.

Fighting alone against a brand to get heard is an uphill task. But, the same is going to be a whole lot different if you fight alongside hundreds or thousands of people facing the same problem. That’s where PublikDemand comes in.(more…)

I can’t tell you how many hours of my childhood have gone into building elaborate forts, spaceships or construction sites with Lego, the block-building toy that captured every kid’s fancy and continues to do so. I really thought that this generation wouldn’t find much appreciation for it until my nephew got his first Lego kit and spent a chunk of his vacation letting his imagination go wild with a bunch of little red bricks and yellow men.